The intricacies of tenure review—a secretive, multi-step process to determine which professors receive a lifetime appointment—are a perennial source of discussion within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. At the December 2 FAS meeting, the debate centered on a new trend: In recent years, more colleagues have been denied tenure by administrators, despite receiving support from their own departments.
That data came from an annual report presented by Nina Zipser, dean for faculty affairs and planning, outlining the makeup of the faculty during the past two years, the previous five, and the five before that—roughly corresponding with the presidential administrations of Alan M. Garber, Lawrence Bacow, and Drew Faust. The data show that during the past 12 years, the proportion of professors who were denied tenure remained relatively stable: 29 percent in the past two years, 17 percent in the previous five years, and 20 percent in the five years before that.
But the stage in the process at which the denial happened has shifted. Between the academic years of 2013-14 and 2017-18, 61 percent of tenure denials happened at the department level. Between 2018-19 and 2022-23, that number was 44 percent. During the past two academic years, it had fallen to 30 percent.
Many of those denials shifted to the “ad hoc” stage, a final step in the process that involves top University officials along with leading scholars from inside and outside Harvard. During the past two years, 40 percent of tenure denials happened at the ad hoc stage. In the five years before that, the ad hoc stage accounted for 50 percent of denials —and in the previous five years, 26 percent. (Zipser and other faculty cautioned that the numbers from the past two years were so small that it was difficult to draw firm conclusions: Only 35 professors went up for tenure review, and 10 were denied.)
The tenure process begins with a review and decision from a candidate’s academic department, followed by a decision from the FAS Committee on Appointments and Promotions, known as CAP, which is made up of divisional deans and representatives from across FAS. The ad hoc step, which can be invoked at the request of various participants, typically involves the president, the provost, tenured faculty from other departments, and tenured faculty from outside the University.
No specific names were discussed during the FAS meeting, which took place on Tuesday at University Hall. But the conversation occurred in the wake of a controversial case this past summer, when Durba Mitra, the Wolf associate professor of women and gender studies, was denied tenure at the ad hoc phase, in a move that surprised many faculty. In 2024, Yiddish professor Saul Noam Zaritt, the only tenure-track Yiddish professor on the faculty, filed a grievance with the FAS after his tenure was denied at the ad hoc stage.
Several faculty members rose at the meeting to ask how the trend had come about and question how they could effectively mentor or guide their colleagues if denials were happening at the presidential or provost level.
Edgerly Family Dean of the Faculty Hopi Hoekstra noted that not every tenure case that goes to an ad hoc committee has received full-throated approval at the previous stages. In some cases, top administrators request to be part of the tenure review process out of a desire to better understand the faculty. In others, reviewers at prior stages of the process raise questions that require more scrutiny. “It’s really looking at it with a different composition of people,” Hoekstra said, “and different information introduced at each stage.”
According to the FAS Appointment and Promotion Handbook, after a department makes a favorable vote for tenure, each tenured member of the department is asked to send a confidential letter to the FAS dean, expressing their views on the promotion.
Zipser’s presentation on faculty trends also noted that the number of tenure and tenure-track faculty in FAS grew by 13 in the past year, despite an official hiring freeze—because fewer faculty have left the University than in previous years, and because searches that had begun before the hiring pause yielded more acceptances than expected.
Zipser also said that a program that started in 2010, which offered incentives for faculty near retirement age to phase out of full-time status, has led to an increase the number of faculty retiring—as did a one-time offer of incentives presented to faculty aged 73 and older during the first year of Hoekstra’s tenure as dean.
The FAS currently has 744 ladder faculty: 565 with tenure, and 170 on the tenure track.
